The Ride Home

Su Ting did not pick up the phone.

It rang twice during the meeting. She felt it buzz against her thigh through the pocket of her skirt. The second time, the man across the table paused and looked at her bag. She said sorry. She did not look at the screen.

After the meeting she stood in the elevator holding a folder she did not need. The doors closed. She took out her phone. Two missed calls from her mother. No voicemail.

She called back in the lobby. Her mother picked up on the first ring.

"Are you coming home for dinner?"

"I have a meeting."

"You just had a meeting."

Su Ting walked through the revolving door. The air outside was warm and wet. Guangzhou in July. Her blouse stuck to her back before she reached the curb.

"Ma, what is it."

"Your father bought crabs."

She opened her mouth and closed it. Her father did not buy crabs. Her father had not been to the market in two years, not since the fall, not since the hip, not since he started watching the same three channels from the same chair every morning until her mother turned off the TV and said go outside.

"He walked to the market?"

"He took the bus."

Su Ting stood on the curb. A taxi passed. She did not raise her hand.

"The bus."

"The 73. He asked the driver to tell him when to get off."

She pressed the phone against her ear. Behind her the revolving door pushed out a woman eating a rice ball. The woman walked past her, chewing.

"Are the crabs alive?"

"Of course they are alive. He tied them himself. They are in the sink."

Su Ting looked at the traffic. The light was red.

"I will be home for dinner," she said.

On the bus she sat by the window. The 73 went down Zhongshan Road, past the old post office, past the elementary school where she had once played the recorder very badly in a talent show. Her father had clapped the longest. She was nine. She remembered because afterward he bought her a crab from a street vendor and she had refused to eat it because it looked at her.

The bus stopped at Haizhu Square. An old man got on with a plastic bag. He asked the driver something. The driver pointed to a seat. The man sat down, holding the bag on his lap. The bag moved.

Su Ting watched the bag for three stops.

When she got off the bus her mother was standing outside the building, not waiting for her, just standing there, holding a pair of kitchen scissors.

"The big one keeps untying itself," her mother said.

Su Ting took the scissors. Went upstairs. Took off her heels. Put on the plastic slippers that were always by the door, the left one more worn than the right.

Her father was in the kitchen, standing in front of the sink, looking at the crabs. He had not tied them well. One had gotten a claw free and was gripping the edge of the basin.

"You bought four," Su Ting said.

"One for each of us. And one extra."

"Why extra."

He did not answer. He turned on the faucet and let the water run over the crabs. The free claw opened and closed under the stream.

She stood next to him. The kitchen was small. Their elbows almost touched.

"I'll cook them," she said.

"You don't know how."

"I watched Ma do it."

He turned off the faucet. Looked at her. Looked at the crabs. Turned the faucet back on.

"The ginger is in the drawer," he said.